[WIP] - Chinese Stairs

AlanSMitchell

Update







I did a little more work on this but I prolly need a little help gauging how much destrction to add in

AlanSMitchell

Crits Very welcome

Snader

That completely depends on the environment. Got some reference to show what you're going for?

AlanSMitchell

well this is one of the first assets I'm making I guess I'm kinda going for aged simi destroyed but not too badly....I want more aged than destroyed. Since I posted this I have made some hairline fractures in the steps but I'm at a loss what to do for the outer pieces. I guess just make sure everything is equally destroyed.

wolver

i think you need to think about the materials a little, is the carving done onto stone,wood? is it framed in wood? are animals gold?

imo i would add faded paint to the engravings on the tablets and a couple of big but thin fractures across them + chipping round edge. for the steps id say you are going for an imperial straight edge almost perfect look + chips. but you could also go for a more worn down by use look by smoothing the edges and bowing them in the middle as if worn down and polished by innumerable foot steps.
might be worth offseting the seam running up the steps by half every odd step, to break up that linear line and make it more dynamic.

AlanSMitchell

Sad face I wish I would have read this just an hour earlier. lol I'm dumb, my god thats perfect.

this was worked on prior to reading this.
thank you so much paintforge!
I'm really excited to possibally going backward a save or two and take up your suggestion.

AlanSMitchell

Test Rendering

njc6425

Is this created inside zbrush? even if its not can you go through briefly how you created it? pretty please? haha

AlanSMitchell

@ njc6425: no problem My process for this has been pretty scattered to be honest.
I took a look at what I wanted to create and for me hard surface models are really hard to create in Z Brush. Also I am fairly good at sculpting but I am much better at bump maps and photoshop tbh.
Thats exactly what I did.
I spent a day or so and I painstakingly made these bmp maps
start

fin

btw I made a custom brush for the clouds.
From there I masked the area inside of Z Brush and used Inflate mulitple times which gave me the Direction I wanted but it was far from perfect. I went in and worked on the medium detail shapes on a lower sub d level
after that I used Claytubes and the defalt brush and I started chipping away to add a aged look.
I made some crack alfa's

It's still a WIP for sure but I'm feeling fairly good the direction I'm going.

njc6425

You made those bump maps from scratch? far out man, good job looks great. Yeh ive been stuggling lately modelling and texturing in maya, i can do it and everything but i feel more comfortable inside zbrush than maya but im not too sure about hard surface modelling inside of it. might give it a try

AlanSMitchell

I did have quite a bit of Reff. The pen tool is my friend.

AlanSMitchell

I think I hate my final presentation for this. I mean it's just Z brush renders. but the saturation feels too high. Aside from the part that I hate the renders I feel pretty good about the model.



I know these aren't the best views but the render settings are pretty high and I don't want to get every angle. maybe I'll save that for my next post.

SStrickland

Looks good! IMHO, you are ready for far more ambitious projects though. Is this a small piece of a larger environment?

AlanSMitchell

yes! Thanks Steve!

eyo

you've got a great layer stone feel goin on those steps, keep it up! looking forward to seeing what else you kick out :-)

leleuxart

Very nice detail! You could always try rendering in Marmoset Toolbag if you don't like Zbrush renders.

AlanSMitchell

leleuxart: I like UDK so I'll post that up sometime soon ^^

AlanSMitchell

nothing is set in stone yet I still need to finish/start my texture for the diffuse and spec.

AlanSMitchell

here is my next piece I have been pouring all my time into.

AlanSMitchell

HighPoly Render from Z Brush

AlanSMitchell

Unreal ScreenShot

TheRealFroman

I love working with height maps Seems like an underrated way of getting a good bump map sometimes lol. You did a good job ^^

Scruples

You did well, this is one of those things in a game where I would probably stop and turn around to admire it only to be shot.

AlanSMitchell

@TheRealFroman I total agree
@Scruples Thanks man I appreciate that
Holy crap after going back to this asset I saw how bad it was lol.

I liked the Way Ddo makes the maps in a presentation for you I thought that was pretty slick so I mimicked it

Marmoset Renders

All of the maps have been redone from the nrms to the diffuse to the spec at a higher res.